Joe Posnanski wrote about a fun concept the other day in a mailbag-type piece. One of the questions dealt with Bruce Springsteen (Poz’s
favorite rock star) and jokingly asked for his WAR. For those who don’t know
baseball, WAR is a newer stat called Wins Above Replacement that tries to
measure the overall contribution of a player. Since this is a pop culture
spin-off of a baseball site written by a huge music fan, this seemed like
something I should write about.
I love this concept as a thought experiment, but Joe touches
on a good point: what is this hypothetical replacement-level musical artist? In
baseball, the hypothetical replacement player is the type of player you could
just find anywhere in the minor leagues. Your Aaron
Mileses*, your Joe McEwings,
and what have you. Can the concept hold through in popular music?
*No idea if I
pluralized that correctly.
I mean, in theory, it could. There are tons of bands just
playing music, filling bars and concert venues across the US and world every
single night. Maybe that’s our hypothetical replacement? And it would make
sense, to some extent; as in, the replacement band is just your average,
run-of-the-mill Beatles/Led Zeppelin/whoever cover band, and you work your way
up from there.
But that’s less fun, to just set the bar at some level where
there isn’t a famous example to point to. Let’s look for a more notable band to
use as a yardstick. Start with Joe’s choices, for instance. He picks Hootie and
the Blowfish and Huey Lewis (presumably with the News) as his hypothetical
“Replacement Bands”.